Bill Nye Quotes & Sayings

If you're an adult and you choose not to believe in science, fine, but please don't prevent your children from learning about it and letting them draw their own conclusions. — Bill Nye

To try to really land a spacecraft really on another world is really difficult, and if we lose that ability, it's going to be heartbreaking. — Bill Nye

I change my socks often, because I had bad bouts of athlete's foot fungus infections as a kid. I may be able to change socks less frequently and not get the fungus. But, I'd rather not run the test to determine just how infrequently I could change socks. I don't feel superstitious about it. — Bill Nye

I suspect everyone there can reason along the lines I described ... It's just that when it comes to evolution, and especially to the related realization that we are all pretty small bits of the universe, it seems as though Ham and his followers just can't handle the truth. They throw aside their common sense and cling to the hope that there's something that makes it okay to *not* think for themselves.""The irony is, in the process they are walking away from our ability to understand who we are, where we came from, and how we fit into a cosmos ... If there is something divine in our nature, something that sets humans apart from all creatures, surely our ability to reason is a key part of it. The irony is, in the process they are walking away from our ability to understand who we are, where we came from, and how we fit into a cosmos ... If there is something divine in our nature, something that sets humans apart from all creatures, surely our ability to reason is a key part of it. — Bill Nye

The moon is out all day. I don't want to shock you. — Bill Nye

I hope climate science becomes the big thing. And then what I want is electrical engineers to solve the world's energy problems, energy distribution problems. I want mechanical engineers to make better transportation systems. I want chemical engineers to develop better solar panels, and so on. — Bill Nye

If you look back on all the teachers that you liked, I am sure you will find they were very entertaining. — Bill Nye

As you may know, I am a mechanical engineer. — Bill Nye

When one shows up in jeans and a T-shirt, I strongly feel that the audience reacts in a very different way than when you show up in a sport coat and a tie. — Bill Nye

The US Navy has several people on every ship that can navigate by the stars. They don't fool with that. — Bill Nye

Evolution is not something you can believe in or not believe in like do you believe in gravity. — Bill Nye

A two-and-a-half-year-old is pretty experienced at making a mess, anyway. — Bill Nye

Try this way of picturing a human lifespan. The National Football League's Dallas Cowboys' stadium holds 105,000 people. Now, imagine that you're watching life go by down on the field, and every day you watch that life go by from a different seat. You don't even get a third of the way around. Before you've settled into a third of the seats, you'd be dead. And, that's if you had a good run, eighty-two-plus years. Yikes! — Bill Nye

Not wasting any water bottles is good. Not leaving the lights on is good. Turning the thermostat down in the winter, up in the summer, is good. But the best thing any of us in the developed world, especially in the United States, can be doing is talking about it. — Bill Nye

Skin color is basically a measure of the local ultraviolet levels, and it is controlled by relatively minor adaptive changes in the genome. — Bill Nye

The process of testing claims is called science. Now, If you have a claim that can't be tested thats what we call pseudo-science. The difference between pseudo-science and science is whether or not you can test it. — Bill Nye

The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old. It's not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs. — Bill Nye

As I learned more about evolution, I realized that from nature's point of view, you and I ain't such a big deal. Humans are just another species on this planet trying to make a go of it, trying to pass our genes into the future, just like chrysanthemums, muskrats, sea jellies, poison ivy ... and bumblebees. — Bill Nye

Television isn't inherently good or bad. You go to a bookstore, there are how many thousands of books, but how many of those do you want? Five? Television's the same way. If you're going to show people stuff, television is the way to go. Words and pictures show things. — Bill Nye

Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us. — Bill Nye

Science is the best idea humans have ever had. — Bill Nye

From an evolutionary standpoint you can't just wipe everything out and start over, and I don't think you can do it in the school system either. — Bill Nye

One organism's trash is another organism's treasure, as I like to say. — Bill Nye

Everyone that you'll ever met wil know someone that you won't — Bill Nye

Intuitively you want some place [such as your phone] to store phone numbers, so you have that part of your brain to do other tasks. — Bill Nye

It's survival of the hang-in-there's, or the made-the-cuts, or the just good-enoughs. — Bill Nye

I tell personal stories associated with aspects of the theory, and I hope they are interesting and compelling. I don't feel you're going to change a grownup's mind in one reading. People have to be exposed to scientific ideas over and over again for years. It's also not a textbook. — Bill Nye

Humor is everywhere, in that there's irony in just about anything a human does. — Bill Nye

Tax dollars intended for science education must not be used to teach creationism as any sort of real explanation of nature, because any observation or process of inference about our origin and the nature of the universe disproves creationism in every respect. — Bill Nye

Climate change is a real deal. So, hey deniers - cut it out, and let's get to work. — Bill Nye

I understand that you take the Bible, as written in English, translated many many times over the last three millennia as to be a more accurate, more reasonable assessment of the natural laws we see around us than what I and everybody in here can observe. That, to me, is unsettling. — Bill Nye

Religion is a completely different thing from the claim that the Earth is six thousand years old. That's just crazy. — Bill Nye

Apparently there is redundancy in memory: You store the same memory in different parts of your brain for accessing at different speeds. That speed would depend on the frequency of use and the importance of the knowledge. — Bill Nye

You're dressed in a tuxedo, you wear a bow tie. A bow tie with a tuxedo is more formal than a straight tie with a tuxedo. — Bill Nye

You stop planetary exploration, those people who do that extraordinary work are going to have to go do something else. — Bill Nye

The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it. — Bill Nye

It was fun for me also to point out that this brand of young-Earth creationism claims that kangaroos came from a huge ship, the ark, which is supposed to have safely run aground on Mount Ararat in modern-day Turkey. It's a respectable peak - 5,165 meters (almost 17,000 feet) - and it's snowcapped. It's not clear to me how all the animals and humans made the arduous descent. The kangaroos, both of them, are supposed to have made it down the mountain, ran or hopped from there to Australia - and no one saw them. Furthermore, if they took a reasonable amount of time to make the trip, you'd expect some kangaroo pups or joeys to have been born and some adults to have died along the way. You'd expect some kangaroo fossils out there somewhere in what is now Laos or Tibet. Also, they are supposed to have run across a land bridge from Eurasia to Australia. But there's no evidence of such a bridge or any kangaroo fossils in that area, not any. — Bill Nye

the biggest perceived enemy of the U.S. is called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or alternatively the Islamic State of the Levant (ISIL). They are bent on taking over territory by means of terror. If the Western countries did not need the oil that these terrorists control, the money that ultimately funds their operations would dry up. They could no longer operate as a terrorist state, — Bill Nye

Our understanding of evolution came to us by exactly the same method of scientific discovery that led to printing presses, polio vaccines, and smartphones. — Bill Nye

When religions disagree about just creation, there is nothing to do but argue. When two scientists disagree about evolution, they confer with colleagues, develop theories, collect evidence, and arrive at a more complete understanding. Every question leads to new answers, new discoveries, and new smarter questions. The science of evolution is as expansive as nature itself. — Bill Nye

The philosophy of science is inherent in the process. This is to say, you think critically, you draw a conclusion based on evidence, but we all pursue discovery based on our observations. That's where science starts. — Bill Nye

We should educate more women and girls. Because that is the surest route to controllably, manageably reducing the human population. Educated women have fewer kids. And the kids they do have are better cared for and are more successful. As I like to say, it's not one thing that we need to focus on. It's everything all at once. — Bill Nye

Some of the most wonderful aspects and consequences of evolution have been discovered only recently. This is in stark contrast to creationism, which offers a static view of the world, one that cannot be challenged or tested with reason. And because it cannot make predictions, it cannot lead to new discoveries, new medicines, or new ways to feed all of us. — Bill Nye

What makes the United States great, the reason people wanted to live in the United States, move here still, is because of our ability to innovate. — Bill Nye

The(re is no) End — Bill Nye

Science provides a much more satisfactory way to seek answers than does any religion. — Bill Nye

The information you get from social media is not a substitute for academic discipline at all. — Bill Nye

If the Earth gets hit by an asteroid, it's game over. It's control-alt-delete for civilization. — Bill Nye

The world's going to change climatically. We just want to control the change. We want to have a high quality of life for billions of people as we pass through this era. — Bill Nye

What happens to other species also happens to us. — Bill Nye

so long as we each focus only on our individual decisions and their short-term consequences, we will act like renters, not owners of this Earth. — Bill Nye

People love dogs. This is, I hope, the least surprising sentence you will read in this book. I myself have had long discussions with my dog friends, and by that I mean my friends who are dogs. — Bill Nye

So remarkably deaf was my grandfather Squeers That he had to wear lightning-rods over his ears To even hear thunder, and oftentimes then He was forced to request it to thunder again. — Bill Nye

When we see the shadow on our images, are we seeing the time 11 minutes ago on Mars? Or are we seeing the time on Mars as observed from Earth now? It's like time travel problems in science fiction. When is now; when was then? — Bill Nye

There is good evidence that Venus once had liquid water and a much thinner atmosphere, similar to Earth billions of years ago. But today the surface of Venus is dry as a bone, hot enough to melt lead, there are clouds of sulfuric acid that reach a hundred miles high and the air is so thick it's like being 900 meters deep in the ocean. — Bill Nye

There are just two people entitled to refer to themselves as "we"; one is the editor and the other is the fellow with a tapeworm. — Bill Nye

Everybody who's a physician, who makes vaccines, who wants to find the cure for cancer. Everybody who wants to do any medical good for humankind got the passion for that before he or she was 10. — Bill Nye

Nature, everywhere the most amazingly and outstandingly remarkable producer of living bodies, being most carefully arranged according to physical, mechanical, and chemical laws, does not give even the smallest hint of its extraordinary and tireless workings and quite clearly points to its work as being alone worthy of a benign and omnipotent God ... — Bill Nye

Our goal in science is to discover universal laws of nature. If one's faith requires one to abandon or ignore natural laws, well, that person is going to have trouble reconciling religion and science. Otherwise, there is no any conflict. — Bill Nye

We need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. — Bill Nye

Speaking of human computers, there is a guy named Art Benjamin, he's a human calculator. He says it's a skill he learned as a kid. Now he's a math professor at Harvey Mudd. He can find the square root of a six digit number in a few seconds. Practice. — Bill Nye

The future of commerce is going to be all electronic. The gold standard was a fine idea, but electronic changes of funds and credits will be the future. — Bill Nye

If you have this idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old, you are denying, if you will, everything that you can touch and see. You're not paying attention to what's happening in the universe around you. — Bill Nye

There really is no such thing as race. We all came from Africa. We are all of the same stardust. We are all going to live and die on the same planet, a Pale Blue Dot in the vastness of space. We have to work together. — Bill Nye

In another couple centuries I'm sure that worldview won't even exist. There's no evidence for it. — Bill Nye

I always say when you see that old black-and-white footage of the rocket on the launch pad and it falls over and explodes, that's because people had slide rules. Not having the decimal point is a real drawback. You want the decimal point, take it from me. — Bill Nye

If your house is on fire, you don't comfort yourself with the thought that houses have been catching fire for thousands of years. You don't sit idly back and think, "Oh well, that is the way of nature." You get going, immediately. And you don't spring into action because of an idealistic notion that houses deserve to be saved. You do it because if you don't, you won't have a place to live. — Bill Nye

NASA is an engine of innovation and inspiration as well as the world's premier space exploration agency, and we are well served by politicians working to keep it that way, instead of turning it into a mere jobs program, or worse, cutting its budget. — Bill Nye

Hard to find anything lovelier than a tree. They grow at right angles to a tangent of the nominal sphere of the Earth. — Bill Nye

You and I are made of stardust. We are the stuff of exploded stars. We are therefore, at least 1 way that the Universe knows itself. That, to me, is astonishing. — Bill Nye

The strange thing about grinding that might surprise many people is that you can grind things and shape them using materials that are generally somewhat softer than the thing you're grinding and shaping. — Bill Nye

The naysayers are not only casting doubt on science and nonbelievers; they are also ignoring the billions of non-conflicted believers around the world, dismissing their views as unworthy. — Bill Nye

When we explore the cosmos, we come to believe and prove that we can solve problems that have never been solved. It brings out the best in us. Space exploration imbues everyone with an optimistic view of the future. — Bill Nye

I meet so many people who are intimidated by arithmetic. — Bill Nye

The takeaway message here, as Jablonski points out, is that there is no such thing as different races of humans. Any differences we traditionally associate with race are a product of our need for vitamin D and our relationship to the Sun. Just a few clusters of genes control skin color; the changes in skin color are recent; they've gone back and forth with migrations; they are not the same even among two groups with similarly dark skin; and they are tiny compared to the total human genome. So skin color and "race" are neither significant nor consistent defining traits. We all descended from the same African ancestors, with little genetic separation from each other. The different colors or tones of skin are the result of an evolutionary response to ultraviolet light in local environments. Everybody has brown skin tinted by the pigment melanin. Some people have light brown skin. Some people have dark brown skin. But we all are brown, brown, brown. — Bill Nye

Everybody remembers numbers and computers remember numbers. People remember procedures and computers certainly remember procedures. But the other thing that's still important is that your perception as a human is affected subtly by all this stuff that you can't quite articulate. You run your life according to all this stuff that's happened to you. All of your memories affect everything you do whereas with a computer, there's adaptive software and things, but it's more literal. — Bill Nye

I like to regard myself as someone who's capable of critical thought, that is to say, who can evaluate claims. — Bill Nye

By the way, most of the light that comes from the sun is green. — Bill Nye

The oncoming trouble I speak of is climate change. It's going to affect all of you in the same way the Second World War consumed people of my parent's generation. — Bill Nye

Put another way, I love all of you dog lovers, but I have to spoil your fun a little with a fundamental truth. There is, in an important evolutionary sense, no such thing as a specific breed of dog. If a Great Dane has sex with a dachshund, you get a dog. If a Standard Poodle has sex with a Jack Russell terrier, you get a dog. If a mutt has sex with a so-called purebred, you get a dog. — Bill Nye

The natural world is a package deal; you don't get to select which facts you like and which you don't. — Bill Nye

I used to play ultimate Frisbee, and I just got a reputation for making popcorn at parties. I don't mean to brag on myself, but I make the popcorn in the pot, and it comes out fine every time. — Bill Nye

The thing about a theory in science is it allows you make predictions. Evolutionary theory allows us to predict what apples will taste good next harvest. — Bill Nye

There is a deep-seated reason why intelligent, sensible people suddenly recoil from objective evidence when the topic turns to evolution. I think the fear of death has a lot to do with it. — Bill Nye

I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion. But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old. — Bill Nye

We are killing off species at the rate of about one per day. It is estimated that humans are driving species to extinction at least a thousand times faster than the otherwise natural rate. — Bill Nye

Science is the key to our future, and if you don't believe in science, then you're holding everybody back. And it's fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don't believe in evolution, but if we educate a generation of people who don't believe in science, that's a recipe for disaster. We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong. — Bill Nye

I feel strongly that we need the young people of today to become the scientists and the engineers of tomorrow so that my native United States continues to be a world leader in discovery and innovation. If we suppress science in this country, we are headed for trouble. — Bill Nye

Winter lingered so long in the lap of Spring that it occasioned a great deal of talk. — Bill Nye

Inherent in this rejection of evolution is the idea that your curiosity about the world is misplaced and your common sense is wrong. This attack on reason is an attack on all of us. Children who accept this ludicrous perspective will find themselves opposed to progress. They will become society's burdens rather than its producers, a prospect that I find very troubling. Not only that, these kids will never feel the joy of discovery that science brings. They will have to suppress the basic human curiosity that leads to asking questions, exploring the world around them, and making discoveries. They will miss out on countless exciting adventures. We're robbing them of basic knowledge about their world and the joy that comes with it. It breaks my heart. — Bill Nye

This is one of the reasons I get such joy from studying evolution. This kind of science is amazing and sexy. — Bill Nye

If NASA is to reach beyond the Moon and someday reach Mars, it must be relieved of the burden of launching people and cargo to low earth orbit. To do that, we must invest more in commercial spaceflight. — Bill Nye

I've always loved airplanes and flight. The space program was really important to me as a kid. I still have a photo of Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in my living room. — Bill Nye

The Big Bang banged, and for some reason we're here. And that's astonishing. And that we can understand that, that's the most astonishing. — Bill Nye

We are special in the sense that we can know our place in the cosmos. We can know our place in space. We are at least one of the cosmos's ways of knowing itself. That fills me with reverence and joy. Another insight I really want people to consider is this: everyone has gotten this far. Everyone you meet has made it this far. Nobody is superior to anyone else from an evolutionary standpoint. — Bill Nye

I worked at comedy clubs - if I can use the term 'work' - for several years. I middled at one point. I never made it; I was never a headliner. I never made enough time to write enough good material, in my opinion. — Bill Nye

Unlike science, creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past. — Bill Nye

One of the drawbacks of English is you can't spell things by hearing them. — Bill Nye

If you want grown-ups to recycle, just tell their kids the importance of recycling, and they'll be all over it. — Bill Nye

I try to speak plainly and be sympathetic to the idea of religions where people gather in community. They get a sense of people looking out for each other. My claim is that we have a tendency to look out for each other whether or not there is a religion involved. — Bill Nye